Do webinars make sense for your business?

September 21, 2013

Webinars may not make sense for all businesses and enterprises. For some businesses, traditional conferences, seminars and trade shows may be better. When does it make sense to use a webinar for business?

Webinar for business marketing

A business may conduct webinars to highlight the brand as a whole or specific products / services for the purpose of lead generation. Training webinars is another possibility for building engagement. Consider offering free or fee-based training for customers or employees. General business education webinars can help establish an enterprise’s thought leadership in a topic. By holding special, limited-access webinars for investors, press, industry analysts, and other groups, business leadership can drive greater support around initiatives and campaigns.

When to use webinars for business

Is your audience or prospective buyers separated geographically? Is it challenging to see them in a single trip?

Your business needs to create engagement through a series of events, but budget is a concern.

There is a need to maintain relationships after a real-world event.

Customers are not concentrated in a local market.

Your customers, leads or prospects are tech savvy.

You need a cheaper alternative to engage customers than real-world events or in-person seminars. Or you lack a proper meeting space for real-world engagement.

Your business or enterprise needs to educate prospects, leads or customers to demonstrate value for sales.

On-going education around your product or service would improve retention or customer happiness.

One-on-one training to too expensive and webinars would provide a less costly alternative.

Customers are under-utilizing your product or service. More education would drive better engagement or value perception.

Ironpaper is a results-driven digital marketing agency. Ironpaper integrates design, technology and marketing for the web to drive meaningful results for clients. We are based in New York City and Charlotte, NC.